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Documentary Filmmakers Lament Hollywood Cutbacks and Deal Scarcity: ‘Our Ecosystem Is in the Midst of a Collapse’
Documentary filmmakers gathered at the Full Frame festival discussed ways to build infrastructure for emerging filmmakers amid Hollywood cutbacks
Cable expanded documentary’s reach to wider audiences in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and films like “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “March of the Penguins,” and “An Inconvenient Truth” became legitimate box-office breakthroughs, but nonfiction features on the whole remained something of a stepchild within the larger Hollywood ecosystem until 2017, when Netflix acquired Brian Fogel’s “Icarus” for $5 million. But on a more bracing note, Margolin cited a recent newsletter by Brian Newman, founder of Sub-Genre, that likened the entertainment’s industry infrastructure to Baltimore’s now-collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. Panelists also discussed the importance of not working for free, low development budgets, production company and sales agent fees as well as making the DGA a stronger ally for documentary filmmakers during the hour-long panel.
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